Privacy policy

Protecting your data is important to us. By way of this privacy policy, we underscore our obligation to protect the privacy and personal rights of each individual. It describes the handling of information that we use directly or indirectly to identify individual persons (hereinafter referred to as “personal data”).

This privacy policy applies to www.vetz.vet and other websites containing a link to this privacy policy. This privacy policy was last updated on 2 June 2017. The party responsible for all websites is Veterinärmedizinisches Dienstleistungszentrum (VetZ) GmbH (hereinafter referred to as “VetZ”), Sattlerstrasse 40, 30916 Isernhagen, Germany. Because certain VetZ products, programs, events, services and websites (hereinafter referred to as “products and services”) may be subject to different privacy policies, we recommend attentively reading the privacy policies of all VetZ products and services that you access or make use of in any way.

1. Global data protection standards

Our handling of personal data is oriented towards global principles and standards. We are transparent in the use of your personal data, take your freedom of choice into consideration in the use of your data and comply with global rules and regulations regarding data security and data dissemination. We monitor the lawfulness of the processing of your data and comply with the data protection laws in the countries in which we operate.

2. Consent

By using this website, you consent to the storage and use of your data as described below. You may not use this website if you do not consent to the conditions stipulated therein. Changes to this privacy policy will always be announced on this page. You should therefore regularly make note of corresponding updates. Where required by applicable data protection law, we also explicitly request your consent for the further processing of the personal data gathered on this website or provided by you. However, your consent is always provided at your own free will. Failing to provide your consent or later revoking our right to process your personal data may restrict or fully prevent your use of our products and services.

3. Gathering and processing of personal data

We gather, store and use personal data so as to better understand your wishes and interests and offer you optimal service at all times. When you visit our website, we record your IP address and use cookies and other Internet technologies (hereinafter referred to as “automated tools”) that allow us to gather information about our website’s visitors and their interests. Depending on the automated tools employed, we gather your IP address, your vetsXL ID, your petsXL ID, your browser type, the VetZ websites you have visited, the objects on which you click on individual VetZ websites, the time you spend on a particular website, the referring website from which you accessed a VetZ website and the non-VetZ website you accessed from a VetZ website. In addition, we gather personal data that you voluntarily share with us when you sign up for seminars, webinars and other events; subscribe to newsletters; participate in online surveys; create your personal vetsXL ID and/or petsXL ID; enter discussion groups or discussion forums; make purchases; or otherwise share your contact data with us. Personal data may include the following information: your first and last name; your address and e-mail address; your telephone and fax number; your login details and credentials for vetsXL.com, petsXL.com and associated services; login details for social networks; financial and banking information; information about companies at which you work and with which you work; and information about your relationship with us.

4. Use of personal data

We use your data solely as described in this privacy policy and/or within the framework of expressly provided consent. Under applicable law, you must explicitly consent to any subsequent changes to the purpose of use. We process your data solely for the following purposes:

• To make offers and process orders, and to deliver, provide and invoice our products and services.
• To inform you about new products and functions, updates and upgrades, system enhancements, special offers and everything else in relation to VetZ and our products and services. In certain cases, this information may be provided by our business partners if their products and services beneficially complement or supplement our products and services.
• To allow you to create a personal user profile (vetsXL ID or petsXL ID), which enables you to access our products and services at all VetZ companies. You therefore confirm that the personal data necessary for the creation of your user profile may be shared and used for this purpose within all VetZ companies. Some of our products and services allow you to share information about yourself (including personal data) with other registered users of the same products and services. You can use the functions of the respective products and services to determine what information you would like to share.
• To customise information about us and our products and services to precisely fit your needs. Doing so allows us to offer you precisely the products and services that interest you when you visit our website.
• To offer you a personalised user experience and show you protected content.
• To ensure and monitor the quality of the information and advice we provide.
• To contact you in response to customer enquiries, provide information about shipping and invoicing questions, provide feedback and provide support.
• To prepare our employees for questions that you have about us and our products and services.
• To organise competitions, raffles or other marketing or promotional activities.
• To conduct voluntary customer surveys in order to continuously improve our products and services.
• To process job enquiries.
• To prepare anonymised data with regard to the use of our websites, products and services that we use solely to improve our websites, products and services.
• To meet contractual obligations.
• To comply with applicable official regulations.

5. E-mail addresses

By stating your e-mail address, you allow us to contact you by e-mail. We do not share your e-mail address with third parties outside of the VetZ companies unless it is necessary for the business relationship between you and us. You may decide at any time to stop receiving e-mails from us. However, this decision will in no way affect the sending of e-mails that are necessary for maintaining the business relationship between you and us. Please note that, depending on the configuration of your e-mail application, sending an e-mail to us may automatically transmit information about you.

6. Orders

Our website contains order forms that you can use to purchase our products and services. These forms may also record payment information, such as your bank details or your credit card number. Financial data that you share with us in this manner will be used by us solely to invoice and process payment for the respective transaction. This includes the sharing of your data to third parties responsible for processing, such as banks, credit card companies or other financial and credit institutions.

7. IP addresses

We use your IP address to analyse malfunctions; to determine the country from which you are accessing our websites, products and services; to show corresponding legal notices; to manage the website; for quality assurance purposes; and to obtain demographic information. We record IP addresses solely in connection with your visit to our website.

8. Automated tools

During your visit to our websites, we gather data with the help of automated tools such as web beacons, cookies, integrated weblinks or other, generally used methods in addition to the information that you voluntarily share with us. The data we gather includes standard information that your browser sends to our website, such as your browser type and your language settings, access times or the address of the website through which you accessed our website. You may opt out of the use of automated tools by setting your browser accordingly if no other methods for your selection are listed further below. Please note that the settings with regard to cookies in your browser are only applicable for the browser respectively installed on a certain device. Therefore, you must select the cookie settings in the browsers of all relevant devices when visiting our website with other browsers or other devices. However, doing so may limit the full functionality of the corresponding website. We currently use the following automated tools for the purposes described as follows.

Google AnalyticsSome of our websites use the Google Analytics web analysis services. Google Analytics stores cookies on your device so that we can analyse your use of our website. The information generated by the cookie is transmitted, along with your IP address, to a Google server in the United States of America and stored there. Google uses this information to analyse your use of our website, to compile reports on website activities for us and to provide further services associated with the use of the website and the use of the Internet. Under certain circumstances, Google may share this information with third parties if required by law or if third parties process this data on behalf of Google. Under no circumstances will Google link your IP address to other Google data. Google has developed a browser add-on to deactivate Google Analytics that gives you greater freedom of choice with regard to the gathering of your data by Google Analytics. The add-on communicates with Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to state that no information about your website visits should be shared with Google Analytics. It can be downloaded from the following website: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Integrated weblinksOur e-mails often contain links that guide you to the appropriate area of the internet following forwarding by our server. Forwarding enables us to change the target URL of these links and thereby analyse the effectiveness of our marketing measures. We can also determine whether you have actually clicked on a link in one of our e-mails. Please do not click on the links if you do not want us to analyse information about whether or not you click on the links in our e-mails.

CookiesCookies are text files that websites store on your device with the help of a browser. We use cookies to show personalised content, save you from having to repeatedly enter passwords or fill out sign-up forms and adapt the information we provide to your user habits. You may opt out of the use of cookies by setting your browser accordingly. Please note that the settings with regard to cookies in your browser are only applicable for the browser respectively installed on a certain device. Therefore, you must select the cookie settings in the browsers of all relevant devices when visiting our website with other browsers or other devices. However, doing so may limit the full functionality of the corresponding website.

9. Sharing of personal data

As a globally active company, we operate a number of websites worldwide. All data and information you provide or otherwise gathered on one of our websites in another country may be sent electronically to a server for one of these websites in another country. These servers may be located within or outside the European Economic Area, or within or outside third countries that ensure appropriate data protection at the discretion of the EU Commission. However, we ensure the security of your personal data worldwide by guaranteeing that the respective VetZ website complies with the data protection guidelines contained in this privacy policy. All VetZ companies may use this information internationally as described in section “4. Use of personal data”.

We are also entitled to share this information to the respectively necessary extent with business partners, service providers, authorised third parties or contractors (hereinafter referred to as “third-party providers”) to allow third-party providers to provide services that you request in connection with our products and services, such as processing orders, registering for events and seminars, providing support services, providing information on our products and services or analysing how people use our websites. If required by law, third-party providers are bound to corresponding agreements and/or comprehensive non-disclosure agreements and may therefore use your personal data solely to provide the requested services.

We do not sell, rent or relinquish your personal data to third parties for marketing purposes.

If necessary, we disclose your personal data and other corresponding information due to summonses, court orders or legal proceedings. Under certain conditions, we gather personal data and other information provided to us and share it to prevent illegal activities, suspected fraud, situations that constitute a potential threat to persons or breaches of our terms of use, or to take appropriate countermeasures.

By accessing our website, you will sometimes be forwarded to content or functions hosted by a third-party provider. Our website’s privacy policy applies if the third-party provider gathers information on our behalf. Otherwise, the privacy policy of the third-party provider’s website applies. Wherever possible, we ask third-party providers to process information in compliance with our privacy policy.

10. Security of personal data

We are committed to protecting your personal data from unauthorised access, unauthorised use and unauthorised disclosure. To do so, we employ standard security technologies, additional security procedures and organisational measures. We prevent the misuse of your data through server technology and preventive security measures that are kept up to date at all times. We oblige our employees and third-party providers to protect data and maintain secrecy. We are not responsible for the content and data protection measures of external websites if you click on links to external websites from our website and use said websites. We therefore recommend reading the privacy policies of external websites attentively.

11. Options/revocation

We communicate with you at regular intervals by e-mail, telephone and other means when you use our products and services to inform you of changes to our products and services, send you invoices, confirm your registrations or send you other information that is necessary for maintaining the business relationship between you and us, for example. It is normally not possible for you to object to this non-marketing-related communication and the associated receipt of information. We only use marketing-related communication if you have granted us your consent to do so (if required by law) and we have given you the option to revoke this consent. You may make use of the option to revoke your consent by taking advantage of the revocation options stated in the respective e-mails or sending your request to info@vetz.vet.

12. Data retention

We retain your personal data only as long as required by the purpose or legal regulations for which they were gathered. Unless otherwise prevented from doing so by law, we will delete your data as soon as you inform us that we may no longer process your personal data. Please address your request to info@vetz.vet. Please note that the use of our products and services will be possible only to a limited extent or not at all in this event. If we are forced to retain your personal data due to legal regulations, we will exclude them from further processing and delete the corresponding personal data as soon as the obligation to retain it has expired.

13. Updating personal data

We require your support to guarantee that the personal data you have provided to us is correct and up to date. Registered users can update their data as needed online at www.vetsXL.com, or send an e-mail to info@vetz.vet and inform us of the necessary updates. If you have any questions about this privacy policy or would like to know what data we have stored about you, please write to info@vetz.vet.

14. US-specific provisions

The following will also apply if we are subject to US data protection guidelines:

Do not trackOur website does not take into consideration any requirements with regard to do-not-track requests. However, you may refuse to accept cookies by setting your web browser accordingly. However, the non-use of cookies may prevent you from using certain functions and features of our website. This website does not permit third parties from gathering information about your person through your browser history or the websites you access.

Protection of children’s dataOur websites and online services are not intended for use by persons under thirteen (13) years of age. If you are a parent or guardian and suspect that we have gathered the data of a child, please contact us as described in this privacy policy.